Also known as:

• drink
• booze
• liquor (US)
• grog (Australia).

What is alcohol?

Alcohol's the oldest, most widely used and most socially acceptable drug in the UK. It was made here centuries before tobacco and caffeine reached us.

Alcohol is a psychoactive drug (which means it changes your mood) and a central nervous system depressant, although it stimulates in smaller doses. When people talk of alcohol they almost always mean ethanol. This is the by-product of sugar and other carbohydrates fermenting, usually with the help of yeast. The sugar can come from:

• grains (hops made into beer, rye into vodka, rice into sake, barley into whiskey)
• fruits (grapes into wine, apples into cider)
• vegetables (potatoes into vodka).

What's the attraction?

Alcohol heightens your mood. If you're feeling happy or affectionate it can make you more so by causing the release of pleasure-causing chemicals in the brain. If you're feeling down, it can depress your mood. Alcohol can make some people aggressive.

Alcohol is a relaxant and it can:

• cause loss of inhibitions (and judgement)
• make you more sociable
• give you confidence (Dutch courage)
• dull pain and other sensations.

It also opens up blood vessels in the outer parts of the body, giving that warm feeling inside and a reddened face.

Alcohol and sex

Alcohol lowers inhibitions and can make you feel more in the mood for sex. It can give people confidence socially and sexually, and can make them less uptight and more affectionate or sexually assertive or experimental.

The numbing effect of alcohol on the genitals can make reaching an orgasm more difficult. But a little booze can relax men so that they don't come too early if they suffer from premature ejaculation.

Drink affects your judgement, which can lead to getting into dangerous situations, taking sexual risks and unsafe sex. You may not even be able to remember the next morning what sex you had or who with. It also alters perception, making you consider sex with people you wouldn't if you were sober (seeing things through ‘beer goggles’).

Drink can cause erection problems (brewer's droop), which can be an added complication if condoms are used. It reduces the effectiveness of Viagra-type drugs. Long-term heavy drinkers can suffer loss of sex drive and ongoing erection problems.